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The growing trend towards high voltage electrical assets and propulsion in the aeronautics and space industry pose new challenges in electrical insulation materials that cannot be overlooked. Transition to new high voltage electrified systems with unprecedented high levels of voltage, power, and efficiency must be safe and reliable. Improvements in both performance and safety of megawatt power systems is complicated because of the need for additional power transmission wiring and cabling and new safety requirements that have the potential of making the resulting systems heavier. To mitigate this issue, novel lightweight materials and system solutions are required that would result in lower specific weights in the insulator and conductor. Although reduced size and weight of system components can be achieved with new concepts, designs, and technologies, the high voltage (≥300 V) operation presents a significant challenge. This challenge is further complicated when considering the extreme operating environment that is experienced in aircraft, spacecraft, and targeted human exploration destinations. This paper reviews the extreme environmental challenges for aerospace electrical insulation and the needs associated with operating under high voltage and extreme environments. It also examines several recently developed robust lightweight electrical insulation materials that could enhance insulation performance and life. In aerospace, research must consider mass when developing new technologies. The impact of these recent developments provides a pathway which could enable next generation high altitude all electric aircraft, lightweight power transmission cables for a future sustained presence on the Moon and missions to Mars using HV propulsion, such as spacecraft with Nuclear Electric Propulsion systems.

This research investigates novel polymeric composite materials made from recycled polyolefin and waste plant biomass (poplar seeds and vegetable peels), which have potential applications in the relatively unexplored field of electrical insulation. For composites made from poplar seeds with low density polyethylene matrix, the structure appears more uniform, even with increased biomass content, in contrast to those utilizing high density polyethylene matrix, which displays notable heterogeneous areas where the polymer appears separated from the fibrous network at higher biomass levels. Concerning the composites of vegetable peels with high density polyethylene matrix, the fragments of vegetable peels are clearly recognizable, and their bond to the polymer matrix appears weaker. When incorporating vegetable peels into the polypropylene matrix, it results in a better distribution of the vegetable peel fragments within the polymer matrix, as well as enhanced structural homogeneity. Overall, the incorporation of biomass reduces the Shore hardness measurement for every polymer matrix. Regarding tear resistance, the inclusion of biomass reduces the values only for low density polyethylene with poplar seeds. For both high density polyethylene and polypropylene, regardless of the biomass type, the property seems to enhance marginally with the addition of biomass. The primary advantage of utilizing these composites is that their water absorption rate is at least twice as low as that of transformer board, while still offering a similar capacity for absorbing transformer oil. All composite types exceeded the minimum required threshold of 70 °C for service exposure, and adhered to insulation class A, similar to cellulose-based insulations. The addition of cellulose to polyolefin composites appears to slightly improve their breakdown strength. The conductivity for this type of composite is at least three times lower than that of cellulose insulation materials, rendering them beneficial for applications in electrical engineering as potential substitutes for cellulose-based materials in multiple electrical insulation uses, e.g., for insulating low voltage electrical machines, as well as serving as a substitute for pressboard in transformers. Additionally, their thermoplastic properties offer enhanced processing versatility, opening up new opportunities for electrical engineering technology, especially with regard to electrical insulation recyclability in the context of a circular economy.

During the operation of multi-electric aircraft, the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) material used to insulate the aviation cable is subjected to a high electric field while working under the extreme conditions of high temperatures for a long time, which can easily cause a partial discharge and even flashover along the surface, which seriously threaten the safe operation of the aircraft. In this paper, the electrical insulation properties of PTFE were regulated via modification by the magnetron sputtering of TiO2 under high temperatures, and modified PTFE with different sputtering times was prepared. The direct current (DC) surface discharge, surface flashover, and electric aging characteristics of modified PTFE were studied under the condition of 20~200 °C, and the mechanisms by which modification by sputtering of TiO2 and high temperature influence the insulation properties were analyzed. The results show that the surface discharge intensity increases with the increase in temperature, the modification by sputtering of TiO2 can significantly inhibit the partial discharge of PTFE, and the flashover voltage first increases and then decreases with the increase in the modification time. The modification by magnetron sputtering can effectively increase the surface potential decay rate of the PTFE, increase the shallow trap energy density, effectively avoid charge accumulation, inhibit the partial discharge phenomenon, and improve the surface electrical insulation and anti-aging properties.

To obtain the knowledge that contributes to the safer operation of nuclear power plants and their prompt recovery and termination in the event of an accident, soft epoxy resins with rubber-based additives—used as insulators and airtight sealants in electrical penetrations in nuclear power plants—were aged under several simulated severe accident environments with different conditions of heat, gamma rays, and exposure to superheated steam containing no oxygen. Then, changes in structural, dynamic mechanical, mechanical, and dielectric properties were examined. It has been found that this resin becomes hard as a result of cross-linking if aged by irradiation with gamma rays. Since the cross-linking slows down the molecular motions, the glass transition temperature increases, whereas the dielectric permittivity and the dielectric loss factor decrease unless the steam penetrates the sample. Although the sample melts and disappears if directly exposed to superheated steam at 171 °C or 200 °C, the irradiation with gamma rays conducted prior to the steam exposure can mitigate the hydrolysis induced by the steam. Although the soft epoxy resin shows drastic changes in various properties, its properties after the aging approach or exceed the corresponding ones of the non-degraded ordinary hard epoxy resin. Therefore, it seems that using soft epoxy resin according to its purposes would not be a problem.

Materials for low-permittivity and electrical insulation applications need to be re-engineered to achieve sustainable development. To address this challenge, the proposed study focused on the dielectric and mechanical optimization of 3D-printed cellulose-based composites for electrical insulation applications. Two different fillers, microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), were used to create biocomposites and bionanocomposites, respectively, blended into a polylactic acid (PLA) matrix. The effects of infill ratio, printing temperature, and filler content on dielectric and mechanical properties were measured using an incomplete L9 (3^3) factorial design. The findings showed that the infill ratio was the most significant factor influencing the properties tested, directly attributable to the increase in material availability for polarization and mechanical performance. The second most influential factor was the filler content, increasing the polarity of the tested composites and decreasing the toughness of the biocomposites and bionanocomposites. Finally, printing temperature had no significant effect. Results for the biocomposites at a 50% infill ratio, 200 °C printing temperature, and a weight content of MCC of 15% gave a 60% higher tensile-mode stiffness than neat PLA printed under the same conditions, while exhibiting lower dielectric properties than neat PLA printed with a 100% infill ratio. These results pave the way for new lightweight materials for electrical insulation.

In the power industry, various electrically insulating materials are used to ensure proper mechanical, thermal, and dielectric performance over decades of equipment operation. In power transformers, cellulose is the predominant material in manufacturing various insulation components. Most of these products are manufactured by wet-molding technology. However, this process is long, labor-intensive, and highly energy-demanding. Under the frame of an EU-funded grant, a new kind of insulation material and manufacturing process were developed. Fully bio-based material (produced in the form of pellets) can be processed using additive manufacturing, allowing for much shorter manufacturing times for insulation products, with considerably less scrap and energy consumption (due to the elimination of the drying stage). The focus of the project was extrusion additive manufacturing technology, but at a later stage, a biomaterial powder was developed, making it possible to print with other technologies. In the paper, comparative studies on various additive manufacturing techniques of newly developed biopolymers have been presented, including extrusion, High Speed Sintering (HSS), and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS). The applicability of such material in power transformers required extensive testing of various properties. These results are discussed in the paper and include: oil compatibility, volume resistivity measurements, permittivity and dissipation factor measurements, determination of partial discharge inception voltage, partial discharges measurement, and breakdown voltage measurements. Although mechanical properties remain below industrial targets, the pioneering results provide a promising route for unique directions toward more sustainable manufacturing of high-voltage cellulose insulation and ideas for improving the material properties during the printing process.

The Paschen law, especially in its linear approximation, is said to be useful for predicting the partial discharge inception voltage (PDIV) in insulation systems when considering different defect sizes and pressure values. Hence, it is often used for designing electrical insulation systems in aerospace applications. This paper presents a comparison between PDIV estimates provided by the Paschen law and a new model applicable to internal and surface discharges in electrical insulation systems under varying pressure and defect size or creepage distance. It is shown that the Paschen law estimates can often be very far from the measured PDIV values for both surface and internal defects and at pressures above and below standard atmospheric pressure (SAP), which can negatively affect the design and reliability of insulation systems. On the contrary, the proposed model provides accurate and consistent PDIV estimates, which are very close to those measured, for both internal and surface discharges. The lower limit of the model application/validation is 50 mbar from SAP.

In this article, an original measurement methodology and detection approach, called partial discharge echo (PDE), applied to the electrical insulation systems of high voltage (HV) power devices is presented. This novel methodology and instrumentation extend the conventional partial discharge measurement approach, perceived as one of the crucial indicators of HV electrical insulation integrity. The application areas refer to electrical insulation in power grids, industrial network devices, and electrification in emerging transportation sectors such as electric vehicles, high-speed rail, propulsion in maritime vehicles, or more electric aircrafts. The experiments were carried out on the model specimens representing both a defect in HV polymeric power cable insulation and degradation of the motor winding insulation. The assessment was focused on PD echo characteristics, such as the echo decay time constant, duration of the echo cluster, inception level during base excitation and in echo period, and the charge magnitude attributes. Applying an analytical approach, the echo decay time constant was extracted from the PD phase-resolved patterns. A comparison of PD echo attributes in new and aged specimens revealed a clear dependence of the echo pattern on the condition of the dielectric surface. It was found in the research that, in the case of polyethylene specimen, the main PD echo attribute represented by the extracted decay time constant was reduced from 10.42 ms for the untreated sample to 1.04 ms for the electrically deteriorated sample. Simultaneously, the ratio of the echo peak magnitude to PD charge absolute magnitude has increased from 0.44 to 0.59 for the new and electrically aged specimen, respectively. In the case of twisted-pair motor winding insulation, the calculated PD echo decay time constant was 33.0 ms for new specimen and 6.1 ms for thermally deteriorated specimen. The PDE magnitude parameter yielded values of 0.18 and 0.19 in the above experiment. A reduction in the PD echo inception voltage from 1.4 kV to 1.2 kV was also observed. PDE is a non-invasive technique that may provide additional insight into the insulation surface conditions and charge-transport effects, offering new diagnostic attributes that expand the assessment of insulation conditions that are not possible by conventional PD measurements.

This paper presents a study that conducted 5000 h of multi-factor aging tests on 10 kV composite crossarms, considering the natural environment in coastal areas and actual power line operations. Various aging conditions, such as voltage, rain, temperature, humidity, salt fog, ultraviolet light, and mechanical stress, were applied during the tests. The research initially analyzed the influence of multi-factor aging on the bending and tensile properties of the full-size composite crossarm. Subsequently, a detailed investigation was carried out to assess the impact of aging on the mechanical properties, electrical insulation properties, and microscopic characteristics of the composite crossarm core bar. Results indicated that the tensile strength and bending strength of the full-size composite crossarm mandrel experienced minimal changes after aging, remaining well within operational requirements. However, the silicone rubber outer sheath’s hydrophobicity decreased, leading to the appearance of cracks and holes on the surface, which provided pathways for moisture and salt infiltration into the mandrel. As a consequence, the bending strength and shear strength of the mandrel material were reduced by 16.5% and 37.7%, respectively. Moreover, the electrical performance test demonstrated a slight change in the mandrel’s leakage current, while the electrical breakdown strength decreased by 22.8%. Microscopic analysis using SEM, three-dimensional CT, and TGA revealed that a small amount of resin matrix decomposed and microcracks appeared on the surface. Additionally, the fiber-matrix interface experienced debonding and cracking, leading to an increased moisture absorption rate of the mandrel material.

For chronic applications of flexible neural implants, e.g., intracortical probes, the flexible substrate material has to encapsulate the electrical conductors with a long-term stability against the saline environment of the neural tissue. The biocompatible polymer polyimide is often used for this purpose. Due to its chemical inertness, the adhesion between two polyimide layers is, however, a challenge, which can lead to delamination and, finally, to short circuits. The state-of-the-art method to improve the adhesion strength is activating the polyimide surface using oxygen reactive ion etching (O2 RIE). However, the influence of the process variations (etching time, bias power) on the long-term stability is still unclear. Therefore, we establish a test method, where the aging of a gold interdigital structure embedded in two polyimide layers and immersed in saline solution is accelerated using an elevated temperature, mechanical stress and an electrical field. A continuous measurement of a leakage current is used to define the failure state. The results show that the variation of the O2 RIE plasma process has a significant effect on the long-term stability of the test samples. Comparing the two different plasma treatments 0.5 min at 25 W and 1 min at 50 W, the long-term stability could be increased from 20.9 ± 19.1 days to 44.9 ± 18.9 days. This corresponds to more than a doubled lifetime. An ideal solution for the delamination problem is still not available; however, the study shows that the fine-tuning of the fabrication processes can improve the long-term stability of chronically implanted neural electrodes.